Since 2015, the Urban Modelling and Metabolism
Assessment (uMAMA) research team at the School of Public Leadership has been
undertaking game-changing and exciting research aimed at tracking urban
resource flows and thereby shaping African cities.

by PROF JOSEPHINE MUSANGO

Currently, there is lack of data-supported decision-making
in urban planning, which undermines the building of sustainable communities and
cities, particularly in the face of a rapidly urbanising Africa. To alleviate
the lack of data, uMAMA is providing empirical cases of the metabolism of
African cities. This it does by using a suite of innovative approaches that
promotes bottom-up data collection through engagement with communities. And it
is from this empirical evidence that it is developing theory specific to
African cities.

One of uMAMA’s collaborative research projects is entitled Co-designing
energy communities with energy poor women in urban areas: Case studies in
Kenya, Uganda and South Africa (CoDEC) (www.codec.livinglab.co.ke). This
project is one of nine awarded in 2017 by the Leading Integrated Research for
Agenda 2030 (LIRA2030) in Africa programme. The project draws expertise from
three African transdisciplinary research teams: the Living Lab (www.livinglab.co.ke) at the University
of Nairobi in Kenya, led by Dr Amollo Ambole; the Urban Action Lab (www.ual.mak.ac.ug) at Makerere University
in Uganda, led by Dr Kareem Buyana; and uMAMA (www.umama-africa.com) here at
Stellenbosch University (SU), led by Prof Josephine Musango. The teams have
extensive experience in and knowledge of systems thinking and systems dynamics
in Africa, energy metabolism in African cities, sustainable energy, design,
social innovation, social governance, the energy-gender-health nexus and informal
urban environments.

The objective of the CoDEC project is to provide integrated
solutions to the energy challenges of households in informal urban settlements.
To achieve this objective, studies were undertaken in two informal urban
settlements ˗ Mathare in Nairobi, Kenya, and Kasubi-Kawaala in Kampala, Uganda
˗ and the findings of these studies were compared to research findings from
Enkanini in Stellenbosch. All the studies engaged the stakeholders (the
settlement dwellers themselves), experts and policy actors. Knowledge will now
be co-produced and gender-responsive options for improved household energy
service provision will be co-designed. This will be able to contribute to
improved policies. It will also be able to contribute to the realisation of the
national energy goals of the three countries and to some of the international
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): good health and wellbeing (SDG3); gender
equality (SDG5); affordable and clean energy (SDG7); and sustainable cities and
communities (SDG11).

The first regional workshop of CoDEC was held in Nairobi
from 9 to 11 April 2018. Forty participants were brought together, comprising
the three teams, experts and policy actors from the Ministry of Energy in Kenya
and the Kenya Power and Lighting Company, community members from Mathare, and
funding representatives from LIRA and the International Development Research
Centre. The uMAMA participants were Prof Musango, Ms Suzanne Smit (a PhD
researcher) and Dr Zora Kovacic (a postdoctoral fellow joining the team in May
2018).

There was opportunity for in-depth discussion among the
project partners and the team participants on the project’s scientific, policy
and societal relevance to the energy-gender-health nexus and for a visit to
Mathare.

One of the key achievements by CoDEC during its first year
of research was surveying 300 households in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa
(using the Multiscale Integrated Assessment of Societal and Ecosystem
Metabolism framework); another was the participatory mapping of energy sources
in relation to work and other amenities in Mathare and Kasubi-Kawaala.
Presentations were made at the International Council for Science in Taipei, the
Nigeria Academy of Sciences in Abuja, the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala
and the NEXUS conference in North Carolina. An article was also published in Geoforum,
entitled Setting the scene for energy metabolism assessment of Nairobi city
county.